Head Tattoo problem..

This sounds like a good place to ask about this.

I tried to make a forehead tattoo and seems like no matter what I do there is a white over my face.

Anyone know how to get rid of the white over the face but have a Tattoo on the forehead?

Some programs have a problem saving .tga files with alpha in a format that SL can use. The white sounds like what your experiencing. Make sure your tat is on a layer and the rest of the area that needs to show skin is alpha. Save as a .tga file. If you do that, it should work, if your skin turns out white due to the texture, could be your using an incompatible program.

Im not a real expert on this particular issue. Please reply and detail more about what your doing and the program your using and maybe someone more knowledgeable will reply and get you a fix.

I'm useing Adobe Photoshop. I used the template SL gave I think, I tried deleteing all the layers on one and all but the alpha on another.. no matter what I do SL makes a white area in the texture.. it's weird.. nothing is there.. but it puts white in and the white isn't transparent.. it blocks skin tone and makeup.

I'm wondering at this point if I saved it as some other texture if it would stop whiteing the area and still let me use on head..

I asked someone about it in the game and they said they never solved it, that they had to have a tattoo person do it and that I should bug someone that owns a tattoo shop to tell me what to do,... but that sounds to me like an opening for someone to try to charge me more Linden then I have for something worse then I could make... I hope I'm makeing sense.. my mom's boyfriend is being distracting.

Unless you are using Photoshop 7 you need to make a separate Alpha Channel for your texture. Otherwise, Photoshop flattens the image when it makes a .tga file, and the background becomes white, as you've seen.

If you aren't sure how to do that, you can find instructions here.

If I've added more tuts, and you don't see "Alpha Transparency Maps in Second Life" there, just choose "Alpha Map Transparency" from the list on the left.

Once you do that, your tattoo should look just fine.

Hope this helps!

Robin Wood
http://ww.robinwood.com

Okay.. I think I found the problem.. inside my non-alpha layer was a hidden alpha in the channel of colors.. I can't test if I fixed the problem yet because SecondLife update doesn't like me and I'm waiting to see if Linden would like details from the error report I get or if they just want me to download update off site and get back to normal play (although in the time I've been playing normalcy has been not being able to get on and lag XD )

KittyCat, the only alpha that will be saved is the one in the Channel palette. And yes, if you have more than one you are likely to run into problems with it. There can be only one, and it should be the one that isolates your tattoo.

When you try to upload, you should see your tattoo on a checkerboard background, just like the one that shows transparency in Photoshop. If you don't see that, then you will have a white face again (or whatever the background color in that panel is.)

Robin (Sojourner) Wood

The White Area and the "Alpha" white Area aren't in the location of my Tattoo to begin with.. I will try the one with the deleted Alpha Channel when I can get back on... *waits for a Linden to reply to her one post*

I'm sorry. I thought that your whole head turned white. My mistake.

Just the "Alpha" area, which I got rid of Alpha Layer and it still was doing that.. then I found there is an Alpha Layer hidden in the channels for the "work" layer... so I deleted it and hopefully it will work now.

Hi Robin! You do not have forum PMs turned on, so I'll jsut post it her and hope you or your friends might notice:

URL is wrong in yer sig: should be www.robinwood.com

I've been an admirer of your work all the way back to the illustrations you did for Scott Cunninghams 'Earth Magic' and 'Complete Book of Incense, Oils and Brews' (I think both those are your illustrations ).

-Ghoti

Individual layers do not have their own channels, so I'm confused as to your meaning of "an alpha layer hidden in the channels for the work layer". Channels apply to the entire image as a whole. They govern pixel by pixel the amount of red, green, blue, and transparency (alpha) present in the image.

Anyway, here's how to solve your current problem in 10 easy steps:

1. On the Layers Palette turn off all layers except for the layer that has your tattoo on it. (To turn a layer off, click the eyeball symbol to the left of its name.)

2. If the tattoo layer has any white space around the tattoo itself, use the eraser to get rid of the white space. It's very important at this stage that the tatto be on its own layer with nothing else on it.

3. On the Layers Palette, ctrl-click the icon for the layer with the tattoo on it. (The icon is the little picture of the layer directly to the left of the layer's name.) This will select everything on the layer. You should see the "marching ants" outlining your tattoo now.

4. On the Layers Palette, click the tab that says Channels to switch it to the Channels Palette. What you should see listed here are the three primary channels for your image, labled, "Red", "Green", & "Blue", and a master channel for the three, labelled "RGB". If you see any other channels besides those four, delete them now.

5. In the lower right corner of the Palette Window, locate the button that looks like a square sticker being peeled from its backing. It's the second one from the right. It's immediately to the left of the one that looks like a trash can. It says "New Channel" when you hover your mouse over it. Click it.

6. You should now see a new layer called "Alpha 1", which is currently all black. Make sure all channels except for Alpha 1 are turned off and that Alpha 1 is turned on. This should have happened automatically when you created Alpha 1, but if it didn't, do it now.

7. Your canvas should now appear to be solid black with the exception that you should still be able to see the "marching ants" outline of your tattoo. Paint everything inside the outline white and leave everything outside of it black.

8. Click "Select" on the menu bar at the top of the screen to pull down the Select Menu. Click "Deselect" and you should see the marching ants disappear.

9. On the Channels Palette, trun the red, green, & blue channels back on, and turn Alpha 1 off. Now click the tab that says layers to switch back to the Layers Palette. Create a new layer by pressing the same button you previously used to create the new channel. (Just as it created a new channel while you were on the Channels Palette, it will create a new layer while you're on the Layers Palette.) Click on the name of this new layer and drag it underneath the layer with the tattoo on it. Paint the new layer 50% gray or darker; black is fine. (The gray/black layer will prevent the white halo sometimes caused when Alphas are created the way we just did it. If you don't know what I mean by that, don't worry about. Just make sure to always put a gray/black layer underneath your work and you'll never have to see that white halo.)

10. Save your file as a 32-bit TGA and upload it to SL.

Enjoy.

Hi Ghoti!

Ooops. Thanks, and thanks. It's all fixed now.

(And yes, that was my work. )

Ok, I know I'm a little late to be posting ont his thread but...

Robin- I bow to your altar of quicktime helpfulness,
and
Chosen- I appreciate your conscise step-by-step guide.

I spent countless hours on Saturday with a copy of Photoshop for Dummies trying to figure out to make my alpha channels work. (oddly enough, like KittyCat I am also trying to make a head tattoo) and ended up giving up and totally discouraged. Between watching Robins video, and reading Chosen's instructions my hope has been renewed at making things work!

Thanks again you guys for being so helpful!

P.S. my whole head DID turn white